SHARE YOUR WISDOM
What Is Your Favorite Novel
with Buddhist Themes?
What is the most helpful advice you’ve received about meditation?
Send your answer, photo, and location to themoment@lionsroar.com
Karma has become a popular term for a sort of cosmic justice system based on rewarding “good” deeds
and punishing “bad” ones. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell offers a more authentic and refreshing take on the
ancient concept by demonstrating that our actions are neither good nor bad, but merely steps toward the
cultivation of joy, sorrow, anger, etc.
—Steve Hob Dawson, Victoria, British Columbia
Abel’s Island by William Steig. It’s basically about doing a one-year retreat. The kids and I love it!
—Sumi Loundon Kim, Durham, North Carolina
One novel that has buddhanature is Far Tortuga. It was written by the late Peter Matthiessen, a Zen priest,
and is as Zen as Zen can be, with its poetic spacing and ponderous short spurts of dialogue in dialect.
—Harold McKnight, Gainesville, Florida
I love These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The main character lives fully in each moment,
with mindfulness and integrity.
—Sophie Young, Huntsville, Alabama
The themes of Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr. are Dharma 101. In vivid and harrowing detail, the
book lays clear the truth of samsaric suffering, the chain of cause and effect, dependent arising, change,
and loss. Despite the bleak content, the author wrote with vast compassion. I find it impossible to read
Selby’s novel without my heart breaking open and wishing that all beings be liberated from samsara.
—Franny McFarlane, Oxenhope, United Kingdom
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Persig illuminates the concepts and ideals of Zen
Buddhism while taking the reader on a journey not unlike the one many of us travel on our way to “the
way.” Persig helps us deeply understand the simple term “gumption,” which is integral to practice.
—Mike Howells, Honolulu, Hawaii
I love the series Skull Mantra, Water Touching Stone, Bone Mountain, and Beautiful Ghosts by Eliot Pattison.
These mysteries beautifully illustrate the practices and beliefs of the Tibetan Buddhist people.
—Victoria Rogers, Bloomington, Indiana
A central relationship in A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki is between a sixteen-year-old Japanese
schoolgirl and her elderly grandmother who is a Buddhist nun. The nun, Jiko, represents Buddhism’s moral
compass with lines like, “Life is fleeting. Don’t waste a single moment of your precious life. Wake up now!
And now! And now!”
—Jess Weitz, Marlboro, Vermont
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